“Computer makers are developing strategies and devices to challenge Apple Inc.’s iPad, hoping to capitalize on new interest in a category of gadgets that was moribund until recently,” Justin Scheck and Nick Wingfield report for The Wall Street Journal. “In the next few weeks, executives from Hewlett-Packard Co. will meet in the U.S. and Taiwan to tweak prices and features on an upcoming keyboardless computer dubbed the Slate, said two people familiar with the matter.”
“H-P has discussed selling a version of the Slate—similar to the iPad in size and features, and including a cellular connection—for a price below the $629 Apple charges for an equivalent iPad, one of these people said,” Scheck and Wingfield report. “Executives at Dell Inc., Acer Inc. and Sony Corp. say they are all watching Apple as they refine their own products.”
“For years, big hardware and software makers like H-P and Microsoft tried unsuccessfully to turn consumers on to touch-screen portable PCs, though some had keyboards and not all were called tablets,” Scheck and Wingfield report. “A 2001 tablet from Compaq (since acquired by H-P) flopped, and a pronouncement that year by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that tablets would be the most popular form of PC by 2006 never came to pass. Today, touch-screen PCs with and without keyboards account for less than 1% of world-wide PC sales, according to market research firm Gartner.”
Scheck and Wingfield report, “But the gadgets have gotten renewed attention since Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs revealed the iPad last month. The device, with a 9.7-inch screen, no keyboard, and a wireless Internet hookup, is geared for navigating the Web, reading electronic books and running applications created by others. The iPad, which comes in models priced between $499 and $829, will start shipping in March.”
MacDailyNews Take: And nothing will ever be the same, no matter what the cut-rate, lowball, derivative and tasteless PC box assemblers cobble together.
Full article here.
Peter Svensson reports for The Associated Press, “While there will be a lot of hardware to choose from, the software for smartbooks and tablets needs work. The PC version of Windows doesn’t work on cell phone-style chips, and in any case, isn’t designed for small screens. So manufacturers are mostly turning to Android. But Google didn’t intend Android to run on screens that are bigger than cell phones. Google doesn’t allow Android’s online library of applications, the equivalent of the iPhone’s App Store, to be accessed from smartbooks because it fears the applications won’t work well on large screens.”
Full article here.
Yet again, the rest of the industry waits to take its cue from Apple.
and if Apple decides to jump off a bridge will they be close behind-LOL . No innovation by anyone but Apple
They don’t get it; it’s not the hardware that’s going to make the iPad the Next Great Thing…it’s the software, the interface. As long as PC manufacturers are chained to the Microsoft falling star, they’ll continue to be stuck with the same clunky interface that’s doomed past Tablet PCs.
“Executives at Dell Inc., Acer Inc. and Sony Corp. say they are all watching Apple as they refine (try to copy Apple) their own products.”
Nope,
The PC guys will innovate around the iPad and make something almost as good for a few scheckles less. And all those great bargain hunters out there, (All you Walmart shopers know who you are) will be happy to buy the crap.
And they will proudly drag them out in public and pronounce how it’s just as good at a better price while the things crash, are infected with virus and malware and generally put their electronic and financial assets at risk every time they use them.
But hey, it was cheaper and thus a “better deal”.
“falling star”? I love it !!!
And it is with SOFTWARE that Apple will win here as well. Geeks want their multitasking and tweakability, and the “analysts” will attack apple for not getting on the geek train, but at the end of the day, usability trumps a laundry list of so called features.
The act of copying is the best form of flatery.
This will only give traction to the iPad. Why?
Because it’ll prove Apple have the right concept.
And since these PC guys don’t have the iEcosystem, Apple is the winner.
Greatest fear: Apple becomes so popular that it becomes Microsoft.
May Apple always be somewhat exclusive and the little guy that is fleet of foot. The Tech World needs a company or two like that to survive.
I say let the other companies feed the stragglers and let ’em imitate. It’s all they’ve got!
Apple have forever changed the market without even selling anything yet, all they’ve done is announce the thing. Shows how completely everyone else has failed.
PC assemblers can use Duct Tape to cut down cost dramatically!
Wow, it’s gonna be another scramble. Wonder if anyone can put together anything decent within a year.
“PC assemblers attempt to answer Apple’s iPad”
PC Assembles: “Can you repeat the question?”
“no keyboard”!!! Will they ever understand that for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch the term “no built-in physical keyboard” would be appropriate?!
The PC mfgs have not a clue about creative design, or user friendly software, let alone how the two work together to make a enjoyable computing experience.
The second article is what the real downfall of the me too’s, what OS will they use. Win does not have the software that are made for small screens. Also touchscreen is only available on their top priced versions. You will not be able to run most Android software, what use will that be. Maybe when Chrome is out will they have a answer. The iPad will be able to use all but a very few iPhone apps. Even most camera apps can be used with existing photos. By the time they launch there will be thousands of apps made for the iPad. They will look like cheep, useless, crap, it will be very hard to brake into this space.
Apple certainly are the innovators but as they grow and diversify had better pay attention to their growing maintenance list.
There have been some pretty annoying outages of Mobileme Gallery facilities this week past affecting UK customers. And the launch of Aperture 3 has done a lot of damage too with all sorts of problems afflicting large library collections.
I just hope Apple get the Aperture thing under control soon and avoid any more of these major upsets. In retropect itmight be better for Apple to warn customers not to run before the pro software is thoroughly user tested.
“It’s the ecosystem, stupid!”
@ justme2
Yeah – you hit the nail on the head. They can make the slickest piece of hardware ever – but being chained to horrible OSes not designed for a tablet interface is what will make them fail. NOW, if one of them took the time to create that interface – oh yeah – 2-3 years behind Apple <i>again<i> – never mind.
@ Jubei,
“PC assemblers can use Duct Tape to cut down cost dramatically!”
They could call it The Red Green Edition SuperSlate.
I welcome iPad-type devices from other manufacturers, as the market will soon whittle them down to size based on merit (or lack thereof). It really comes down to the OS and the experience that provides. Windows seems to run abysmally on netbooks, Windows Mobile is a joke, so there is no OS that these slate devices can run that will have been designed from the ground up to provide a cohesive user experience that focuses on what these things will likely be primarily used for, to wit, web browsing, e-mail, portable gaming, movie watching, e-book reading and music listening. The iPhone OS is miles ahead in this respect. People are starting to figure it out — the unity of hardware and software that Apple provides across a full spectrum of computing devices, combined with its attention to detail and focus on user experience is yielding a class of devices that can’t be matched by other companies.
@ Dick Nickson
But if “the market will soon whittle them down to size based on merit (or lack thereof),” why is there Windows at all? Apple’s design and OS has been ahead of Dell, HP, etc and way ahead of M$ since the Apple ][. Yet Apple only recently appeared in the top 5 list of PC retailers and still has low OS market share.
The vaunted ‘competition’ has never made M$ produce something better (other than methods of lock-in) than Apple. Consumers (personal and corporate) using the “WallMart metric” of ‘price uber alles’ still rule.
And it’s very sad.
We’ve heard it so many times now; fill in the blank!
“Computer makers are developing strategies and devices to challenge Apple Inc.’s ________, hoping to capitalize on new interest in a category of gadgets that was moribund until recently,”
Temporarily putting aside the lack of a decent mobile PC OS, what kind of tablet hardware can PC vendors deliver for significantly less than the $629 iPad? Besides, if it really comes down to it, Apple could trim the price a bit, especially given the economy of scale advantage that Apple will enjoy.
KingMel has it.
With a price umbrella so low and yet with such good margins itself, Apple provides little room for the oxygen copyists will need to ship products at a profit. The dumb ones like Dell will do it anyway as they have a penchant for making the nails for their own coffin.